Moldy Bonaire

[PartyStar]

Hey, We are going to do Bonaire again and this time do not want to be hospitalized due to the MOLD we encountered in two of the popular hotels. It appears the place(s) with outdoor lockers where we bring our own padlocks had the least amounts of mold in the rooms. But there was still black mold in the upper part of the closet (saw it when packing to leave) and I did not bring along any Clorox. My question: Can anyone please suggest (PM) a clean place to stay which is not moldy?? It seems to get worse every year. Maybe bring my own bleach, pillows and linens? It would be a smart move for all the hotels, condos catering to divers to construct outdoor lockers so people do not bring any gear indoors to grow mold. One un-named hotel had black toxic mold on the first level rooms and you could smell it upon entering. It smelled like urine. Not only can this kill someone, it is very funky and can ruin a dive trip. I have learned the hard way to inspect before unpacking. If we rent a condo / house and the place is mold-infested our options to move to another location would not be as good as staying at a hotel. If we buy a place there, will be hyper-vigilant in maintaining mold-free and will be able to rent it out to people like myself who have a low tolerance to mold. Thanks for any help in finding a nice clean place to stay on Bonaire for a week or two.

 

[DiveMaven]

Look at Den Laman. We've stayed there 3 years in a row and have never seen mold, even in the shower. They have A/C in the livingroom and bedrooms, so the humidity is better controlled than places with only A/C in the bedrooms. They don't have outdoor individual dive lockers though, Bonaire Dive and Adventure has a big gear room with good ventilation, but we usually take our stuff up to our condo after dinner and let it sit out on the veranda.

 

[Drewpy]

I have stayed in 4 different places for a total of 5 weeks and not encountered this at all...

BD, Golden Reef, Bonaire Sun Rentals, Bamboo Bali.

 

[Mike]

Hey, We are going to do Bonaire again and this time do not want to be hospitalized due to the MOLD we encountered in two of the popular hotels. It appears the place(s) with outdoor lockers where we bring our own padlocks had the least amounts of mold in the rooms. But there was still black mold in the upper part of the closet (saw it when packing to leave) and I did not bring along any Clorox. My question: Can anyone please suggest (PM) a clean place to stay which is not moldy?? It seems to get worse every year. Maybe bring my own bleach, pillows and linens? It would be a smart move for all the hotels, condos catering to divers to construct outdoor lockers so people do not bring any gear indoors to grow mold. One un-named hotel had black toxic mold on the first level rooms and you could smell it upon entering. It smelled like urine. Not only can this kill someone, it is very funky and can ruin a dive trip. I have learned the hard way to inspect before unpacking. If we rent a condo / house and the place is mold-infested our options to move to another location would not be as good as staying at a hotel. If we buy a place there, will be hyper-vigilant in maintaining mold-free and will be able to rent it out to people like myself who have a low tolerance to mold. Thanks for any help in finding a nice clean place to stay on Bonaire for a week or two.

Stay at places with A/C. It's the tropics, bringing in dive gear is not going to create mold, there is plenty of humidity in the air long before dive equipment introduces any. Ventilation and circulation are key in a tropical environment. In places lacking those, A/C will lower the humidity. Have never encountered what you're describing anywhere in the tropics. Probably because it's not like they are discovering this for the first time, humidity goes hand in hand with the tropics like snow goes with the north.

Not sure how anybody is going to be able to recommend a 'clean' place in Bonaire since there aren't any dirty ones. Also you might want to think about using Borax instead of bleach, it's non-toxic in it's mold killing form and is a permanent mold killer in pourous surfaces where bleach isn't, plus you won't be damaging the surfaces where you're trying to remove mold like you are with the bleach.

 

[wwguy]

Talk to Leanne at Beachcomber Villas. BCV is a small oceanfront property just a few houses north of Captain Don's. There are two rental apartments upstairs. The meticulously clean and super-friendly owners live on the lower level. The "dive gear locker" is a well-kept clean and dry room shared with a high-tech energy-efficient heat exchange water heater. The heat exchanger continuously circulates warm dry air through the room. The result is dry dive gear every morning. The owners store their own gear in the same room. The apartments were recently renovated and are very clean.

 

[DeputyDan]

The OP didn't name Buddy Dive but for our last stay there the mold was so bad on the walls that we went to the store and purchased cleaning materials and washed down the apartment before we unpacked.

We will not be staying there again.

 

[oly5050user]

The OP didn't name Buddy Dive but for our last stay there the mold was so bad on the walls that we went to the store and purchased cleaning materials and washed down the apartment before we unpacked.

We will not be staying there again.

sorry that you had that experience. I have stayed at Buddy Dive probably 12 times,and will again, and never had that occur. Have stayed at building 1 -2 and 3 and on the (lions inn)time share side. I hope that if you brought this to managements attention that they would immediately take care of it.
Most, if not all, the units at Buddy'd have been totally renovated in the past 2 or 3 years so this may no longer be an issue.

 

[DeputyDan]

This was in July of this year. Our third stay at Buddy - This occurred in Building #2.
We told management and they didn't see it to be an issue.
The walls in two of the bedrooms were mostly black and green.
The bed linens had mold on them where they had touched the walls.
It had to have been there for weeks to be that bad.

 

[robint]

Wow. We have been to Buddy Dive twice and had no issues whatsoever! Mosquitos were our only issue inside our condo, which can't really be avoided if you are coming in and out of the patio doors alot, like we do. We left our dive gear on the outside patio to dry between dives, not down in the dive locker which is very damp.

 

[gypsyjim]

This July we were in the same group as DeputyDan at BD. Ther units we stayed in were in the older, original BD side, and there were maintenance issues which we had to put a bit of pressure on the staff to resolve.

This was the first time I have had any such issues with BD, but prior to this stay we had always stayed in the newer units, which I believe BD acquired when they purchased the old Lion Dive (If I am right. Not sure of the details, as it was before our first trip 8-9 years ago).

I do realize that being the tropics, mold and such can be a real, ongoing problem, and all the resorts have to continually invest in remodeling and refreshing, but everyone in our group of @20 divers was unimpressed with the slow response from BD staff on this last trip. I have been communicating with their staff since our trip, and they are aware that we found them lacking.
I received a lot of assurance they are responding, and would like to hear any current reviews to see if they have done so.